Neither Academic Nor Professional

This year Sept. 11 fell on a Saturday. Since early September also marks the start of the college football season, there were numerous tributes and remembrances of 9/11 at games across the country. Most were occasions for Americans to honor the fallen and express their pride in their country. However, at least one college administrator was offended on behalf of Muslims.

The vast majority of 9/11 observances in this country cannot be seen as politically neutral events. Implicit in their nature are the notions that lives lost at the World Trade Center are more valuable than lives lost in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere; that the motives of the 9/11 attackers had nothing to do with genuine grievances in the Islamic world regarding American imperialism; and that the U.S. has been justified in the subsequent killing of hundreds of thousands in so-called retaliation.

The observance at Saturday’s football game was no different. A moment of silence was followed by a military airplane flyover; in between, Block-I students chanted “USA, USA.” This was neither patriotism nor remembrance in any justifiable sense, but politicization, militarism, propaganda and bellicosity. The University is a public institution that encompasses the political views of all, not just the most (falsely) “patriotic.” Athletic planners should cease such exploitation for political purposes. They might at least consider how most Muslim students, American or otherwise, would respond to this nativist display; or better, Muslims and others that live their lives under the threat of our planes, drones and soldiers.

The overwhelmingly white, privileged, Block-I students should be ashamed of their obnoxious, fake-macho, chicken-hawk chant, while poverty-drafted members of their cohort fight and die in illegal and immoral wars for the control of oil. University administrators need to eliminate from all events such “patriotic” observances, which in this country cannot be separated from implicit justifications for state-sponsored killing.

David Green,

University Academic Professional

Sigh ... where to begin? My reservoir of outrage is dangerously low at this point. I can only shake my head in dismay and wonder what the hell has happened to this country over the last few decades.

David Green is part of the administration at the University of Illinois. More specifically, he is a Research and Policy Specialist in something called the Institute of Government and Public Affairs. I've posted before regarding my disdain for university administrators. They are the parasites of the academic world: "they neither toil nor spin." But this loser carries it to an extreme.

David Green should get down on his knees every night and thank the good Lord above that he lives in a country where he is able to express such views openly and freely. And while he's at it he should give thanks for the same people he denigrates who make it possible for him to spout such loathsome nonsense.

It's bad enough that I have to defend myself now when people find out I'm a college professor. After this maybe I'll just say I'm a piano player in a whore house.